On Leading with Greatness

It is high time I come clean. Why am I always ragging on bosses in my essays? It’s not that I hate every boss. After all, I was a boss, and while I am sure a few of my people would argue I was just another bad boss (and sometimes I was), I always strived to improve and had evidence that I did so. As I became more experienced as a supervisor, I tried to assure that I was a whole lot better at leading than when I started, but I also knew I could be much better still.

And that’s the thing. Bosses can all be better. If you are a boss, don’t despair. You can be a good boss. You can be a leader. You can be a great leader! The first step is to admit you have a problem, and the problem is you are a boss. All too often the last stop before hell is a corner office.

My best friend when I was about 12 was a boy I’ll call “Randy,” which rhymes with his real name…which was not Mandy or Candy or Sandy. Randy was a total nerd, which suited me since I was too. He had some quirks, though, that even I couldn’t tolerate over the long haul. One of his worst foibles was his cheating when we played games. It didn’t matter the game or how many people were playing. If Randy saw an opportunity, he would cheat and then just deny it when caught. I even saw him cheating at solitaire! Why would anyone cheat at solitaire?

How do you handle mistakes?

Recently a friend told me about a situation she had with her employer. I’ll keep it vague to protect the innocent (and, by extension, the guilty I suppose). My friend had a question about how to proceed with with a task. She has two managers, which is structurally a bad situation from the get-go. One is conscientious but overworked and beleaguered. The other is overbearing and unapproachable. Their areas are entirely separate from one another, but both equally supervise my friend.

The last college I worked at had a scarcity mindset that affected every decision large or small as mindsets do. It was the result of a pretty severe financial crisis from years before and the drastic emergency measures put in place to offset the losses.

Whenever someone wanted to oppose an idea (or impose another draconian cut), the budget was the go-to argument. There was no arguing with the budget.

Have you ever been called to a mandatory meeting with no explanation? Have you ever been required to perform a task or work on a project without any sense of its purpose? Have you ever been forced to have fun at work?

I have a confession to make. It is one I don’t lightly admit in public. There is something about me that sets me apart from most of the people in America, Europe, and throughout much of the world you know. My secret behavior is likely to make you think much less of me.

What do people really mean when they say someone is good deep down?

Filbert was a bit of a nut. His wife would say that all the time with a chuckle. Usually she said this right after he pulled “one of his stunts.” It was not easy being married to Filbert, and her little pun was just one way she coped. When Filbert acted out, his friends would say, “that’s just Filbert being Filbert,” and offer a wry little laugh of their own.

The people who worked for Filbert generally feared him. For decades he had held his entire building floor in a simmering state of anxious misery that occasionally boiled over into roiling terror.

Here is the scene. You are in an audience listening to a dynamic speaker who prances across the stage, mic in hand, full of zeal and conviction. She is preaching the gospel of leadership, and you and your fellow audience members are her latest apostles-in-training. She is making some sense, but you have little time to process what she is saying before she excitedly jumps to the next point and then the next. Her rapid-fire delivery soon overwhelms your brain, inducing a passive state as you absorb her litany. The energy in the room is crackling. It’s almost unbearable.

And then she says it. Enunciating the words like they are part of an elaborate incantation: “Confidence is the foundation of leadership.” At that moment, your critical thinking skills, which had been taking a little smoke break in the alleyway, kick back in: “Is that true? Is confidence so vital to being a leader?” But before you can fully contemplate her statement, she releases another zinger with all the fervor of a gospel singer: “Leaders are the ones who get thing done.”

The word reason has to do with explanations and rationality. To be reasonable is to be logical, persuasive, and persuadable. We imbue reasonableness with all manner of virtue. Justice is reasonable. Sobriety is reasonable. Common sense is reasonable.

And yet, it is the reasonable that allows for injustice. The people regarded as most reasonable sit idly not wanting to make waves while others suffer. The reasonable can be too sober, stripping life of its joys, large and small. The most common sensical humans often misunderstand and misjudge the counterintuitive, the nontraditional, the innovative, and the absurd. Some extremely reasonable people accept and repeat untruths because they seem familiar and safe. Citing tradition is the trump card of the reasonable.

Leadership is in my blood, literally.

My father was a leader in the truest sense. He was often out in front even when he did not have a title or position to put him there. He spent his life leading, and his example still inspires my leadership philosophy.

Dad’s early life was rough. Unlike my father, his father was not a warm and loving man, and his mother made it clear that dad was neither expected nor wanted. He spent a lot of time at his Aunt Laura’s around the corner in Philadelphia’s Overbrook neighborhood where his older female cousins doted over him. That’s probably where he learned to love.